


metachronism

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Inside Llewyn Davis (2013), Mad Men
Genre: Alcohol, Chance Meetings, Crossover, Gen, Smoking, Swearing, so the usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-24
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-09-07 22:26:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8818528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: “Cute. No, kid, I made real money being a grown man and getting on with doing what I had to do, but not all of us have the guts for that.” Roger spoke like he was proud of that fact, like it was some kind of accomplishment, like his sacrifice was somehow greater or more noble than anyone else’s.Scoffing, the noise catching in his throat, Llewyn said, “Who are you trying to convince? You or me?”





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [musamihi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/musamihi/gifts).



“Hey.”

The guy speaking had Madison Avenue written all over him and that immediately made Llewyn want to split, find someplace else to hang because if the Gaslight was attracting sad, slick suits now, it definitely wasn’t where he wanted to be. Barely glancing his way, he got back to fucking with his guitar, plucking at the strings and tightening the tuning pegs. It was cold as hell, the street icing up by the minute, but Pappi was tired of him noodling anywhere but on the stage, so Llewyn had been forced to take it outside and squat on the world’s smallest stool for the trouble, his knees practically in his chest, everything about it humiliating and uncomfortable.

“Hey, I’m talking to you,” the guy said, staggering toward the door. If he wasn’t drunk already, he was well on his way to it. That or he was high, but no. No. The guy was way too uptight for that. And coming from Llewyn, that was saying something probably. Jean might have thought so anyway. Hell, she probably would have said so, too, in more colorful language.

“Yeah, pal, and I don’t give a shit,” Llewyn answered, strumming along with his complete lack of interest in this conversation, life, and the ad man in front of him.

“And here I thought _I_ worked with a bunch of assholes.” The man kicked at the ground, gravel skittering down the alleyway. A smile twisted his mouth into something approaching a pleasant expression. Llewyn wasn’t fooled for a second. “What’s your name anyway?”

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Llewyn muttered, breath condensing in a belligerent huff a few inches from his face. Adopting the least friendly grin in his repertoire—and his repertoire, in this case, was _huge_ —he peered up at the man who seemed determined to further ruin his evening. “Llewyn. Llewyn Davis. Pleased to meet you.” He wasn’t, in fact, pleased to meet the man and though he was sure the man got the message, he also got the feeling the man didn’t much care.

“The name’s Roger.” The man— _Roger_ —thrust his gloved hand out.

Llewyn glared, delaying as long as possible the moment he’d feel compelled to take it. Cracking finally, he shook hands with Roger, his own fingerless gloves measly protection compared to the leather, probably fur-lined gloves Roger wore. Llewyn wanted to hate him for that, but mostly he was too tired and anyway, it would’ve been impossible to play his instrument wearing them. He had no reason to care about what the guy was wearing one way or the other.

“There,” Roger said, throwing his arms out, “that wasn’t so hard, was it?”

The urge to roll his eyes was strong, but somehow he dredged up enough self-control to refrain. Too bad Roger didn’t know him well enough to appreciate his restraint.

“So how are you?” Roger was all but bouncing on the balls of his feet, the heels of his polished shoes tapping rhythmically against the ground, and Llewyn couldn’t tell if it was because it was cold or because he couldn’t manage to stay still for more than a few minutes at a time. Llewyn wouldn’t have been surprised by either possibility.

“Uh,” he answered, “great. I love sitting in the dark talking to squares.”

Jamming his hands into his armpits, he rocked back and then forward, laughing, a little mean, a little superior. “At the guitar. You even know what to do with that thing?”

 _Some days,_ Llewyn thought, _even I don’t know the answer to that_. “Not that it’s any of your business—”

“Play for me.” Stamping his shoes, apparently disinterested in Llewyn’s protest, he glanced at the ground. It was a challenge. And there was nothing Llewyn hated more than challenges. “You’re here. I’m here. Why not?”

“You wanna hear someone play, go inside.” Llewyn pointed helpfully at the door in case he didn’t see the sign above it. “Supposedly the guy in there’s going places.” Bob fucking Dylan. Barely knew him, but Llewyn hated his guts anyway. A little thing like not knowing someone never stopped Llewyn.

“I don’t want to hear someone else play. I want to hear you play.”

The thought of actually singing, even for only one person, was more daunting than climbing a fucking mountain, but Llewyn considered it, discarded the idea, and considered it again.

“Whatever, man. Anything to get you off my back, right?” He adjusted the guitar on his lap, the body a little high for his tastes on account of Pappi being an asshole who wouldn’t let him bring a chair out. Plucking the strings, getting a feel for the instrument beneath his hands, barely trained to his touch—half the time it fought him, like even it didn’t consider him worthy of it. Like it, too, would rather be in Mike’s hands. But sometimes…

Sometimes they synced up, him and the guitar. And it was almost like having Mike back. Not quite as good, nothing would be quite that good again, but it was enough to get him through the day and that—that was worth something. That was everything. It had to be because it was all he had.

So Llewyn played. It was some jingle he’d heard on the TV, upbeat and vapid and terrible in equal parts. “ _What’dya get when you wanna eat somethin’…_ ”

But looking up at Roger, who stared back with keen interest rather than disdain, he stumbled, fingers tripping poorly over the strings. He slowed then, took the jaunty quality of that stupid, damned Cracker Jack song and morphed it into something more genuine. Why he did it, he couldn’t say, but do it he did and dumb about it he felt. “ _If I had wings…_ ”

He didn’t even realize he’d reached the end of the song until he got there, the last chord fading to nothing as he swallowed around the lump in his throat.

“I don’t know shit about folk music, but I like the sound of you,” Roger said. Fishing in the pocket of his coat, he retrieved a business card. And Llewyn almost stopped him there, offended on his own behalf. He wasn’t out here to hustle for the scraps of a stranger’s ill-conceived generosity. He was just minding his own damned business.

“What the fuck are you doing in the Village then?” he asked, not quite willing to tell Roger off for his assumption anyway.

“I was bored.” He shrugged, handed the card to Llewyn, who took it despite the protests ringing inside his mind that he ought to tear the card in half and throw it into what little traffic passed nearby. “Give me a call if you ever want to make real money doing what you love.”

Llewyn snorted, glad for the motivation to do the right thing. What the fuck was real money anyway? What was doing what you love? What the hell would a guy like Roger know about anything at all?

Fumbling in his own pockets, he retrieved half a cigarette and a bent match, the last one in the book. The last one he’d have for a while if his luck held the way it was. The match struck, flaring bright in the dark, cold night, and hissed loud in the mostly quiet aftermath of Roger’s bullshit comment. He made a show of lighting the corner of the business card and whipped the match back and forth to smother it. Flicking it to the ground, he brought the cigarette to his lips and lit it with the card. “Is that what you did?” he asked, voice muffled by the blissful, blissful cylinder of nicotine hanging from his mouth.

“Cute. No, kid, I made real money being a grown man and getting on with doing what I had to do, but not all of us have the guts for that.” Roger spoke like he was proud of that fact, like it was some kind of accomplishment, like his sacrifice was somehow greater or more noble than anyone else’s.

Scoffing, the noise catching in his throat, Llewyn said, “Who are you trying to convince? You or me?”

“I don’t have to convince myself. And you’re convinced or you’re not.” He shrugged. “Makes no difference to me. There are a million of you in the world. A bit of advice? Stop martyring yourself. No one gives a shit about artistic purity.”

“Yeah, I’ll take that under advisement.” If he scratched at his temple with his middle finger, cigarette balanced precariously between it and his index finger, well, he didn’t have to say as much. _You are such an asshole, man. You don’t even know_.

A frown flickered on Roger’s face, mercurial, quickly obliterated beneath the blazing bullshit of a grin. “While you’re doing that, how about I buy you a drink? It’s the least I can do for the only idiot in New York City willing to throw away an easy job. Usually I’ve got people begging me to give them something. It’s refreshing, what can I say?”

Shrugging, returning Roger’s grin with an aggressive smile of his own, he asked, “Well, who could say no to an offer like that?” All the while, he thought, _you must be the loneliest fucker on the planet if you want to spend your time with me._

The viciousness of Llewyn’s response slid right past Roger’s awareness, not even touching him, and as Llewyn pushed himself to his feet, a careful grip on his guitar all the while, he laughed. Roger actually laughed. “You’re something else, Llewyn Davis. You a gin man?”

“That’s not the first time I’ve heard that.” Usually it was accompanied by a lot more yelling and cursing though. Frowning, Llewyn dusted at the ratty corduroy of his jacket. “And I’m an I’ll-drink-anything man.”

“Huh. I thought you bohemian types were…” Roger trailed off and Llewyn hoped it was because he realized how stupid he sounded.

“That’s shitty wine.” He crouched over his guitar case, lowering the guitar carefully into place, safe. Snapping the catches closed, he stood again. “Probably. I don’t know. I heard all you Midtown goons drank whiskey and scotch and pretended you were changing the world one ad sale at a time.” He hadn’t heard that actually, but it hardly mattered. Lots of people drank whiskey and scotch. Sometimes even Llewyn when he had the money for it.

Roger grimaced, tipping his head side to side in concession. “I mean, some of us drink vodka.”

That, at least, startled a rusty laugh out of Llewyn. “Whatever you say, Roger,” he said, begrudgingly warming to the ad man playing tourist in his neck of the woods. He still didn’t like the guy, but maybe he wasn’t as bad as all that. “I know a place. Doesn’t charge as much for their watered-down bullshit as Pappi. Give you the real-deal Village experience.”

There wasn’t any real-deal Village experience, Llewyn thought. There was just the Village and the life you lived in it, but that didn’t stop Roger from buying into it a little bit. Maybe that’s what it was like for guys like him. Always on a search for authenticity. Always wanting something genuine. And willing to buy into the belief that either of those things could be caught and held and kept.

Llewyn could sympathize to a certain degree and that made him uncomfortable, like his skin was stretched too tight over his bones. He shook it off as best he could, grabbing hold of his guitar case, his ball and chain on nights like this. His ball and chain on most nights if he was being honest.

“Come on,” he said, striding toward the street, ignoring the impulse to be honest, “it’s not far.”


End file.
